(30) Anthony and Cleopatra

Well, that break from this blog ended up lasting way longer that I had hoped. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), life intervened (in a good way), and I was too busy to get anything together. But alack! No more neglect! I am back and ready to roll on Anthony and Cleopatra, another great one, perhaps one of my favorites, which was a bit of a surprise (again, in a good way), because I had not yet come across this one in any context (aside from the historical), so all was fresh and new (again, with the exception of the history of it. I was familiar with the relationship between these two and the part they played in Augustus’ rise to power, just not familiar with any artistic interpretation of it…until now).

As in the past, I was able to read the play and then see a live performance. As usual, they complemented each other perfectly.  For the words, I used the Applause version of this play and found it laugh-out-loud great in the scene-by-scene commentary provided by the actress Janet Suzman. Her wry, enlightened, and thoroughly real comments were instrumental in comprehending and more importantly, enjoying, the play (Suzman was a great actress in her time and, in reading her comments, I really think there’s something to the theory that Shakespeare really wrote for actors and actresses. That was his true audience (don’t forget, he was one of them). Suzman’s wonderful comments clearly show, at every turn, that she “gets” the Bard, really gets him, and it makes you think that this may only be possible as a player in the play, not as a simple reader or viewer…but I digress).

Her commentary runs throughout the play, but I wanted to mention one comment in particular, towards the very end, where the action is proceeding to its violent and tragic conclusion. In describing Cleopatra’s end (spoiler alert), she points out that Shakespeare uses copious alliteration around the sound of the letter “S.” Sirrah, see thusly for yourself:

Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?

As Cleopatra commits suicide by subjecting herself to a venomous snake bite (death by asp, can it get any worse?), Suzman notes this alteration, and I could have easily missed it. On top of the poetry, plot, character development, and theme, the text gives the impression of a hissing snake. Reread the above quotation again out loud. See what I mean? I found more of this elsewhere (you’ll have to trust me) and found it fascinating in every case, the deliberate emulation of the snake’s hiss to deepen the horror for poor Cleopatra (and for voyeuristic us). It’s brilliant, another carefully crafted detail so deftly put forth that it heightens the experience and deepens the art at a level which registers viscerally (if not subconsciously) for reader.

Concerning the live version (I saw it performed live in New York last week), details abounded as well, but of a different sort. In one scene (I could look up exactly which one but I’m feeling a little lazy, and it really doesn’t matter), the three leaders of the Roman republic stand conversing in opposite corners of the stage, the great Triumvirate of Rome: Caesar, Anthony, and Lepidus. I noticed the care and deliberateness of their positions and the preciseness in the placement of their feet, a placement in complete accordance with their individual demeanors.

Caesar, a cool, calculating, political machine, stood firmly on the stage, feet aligned exactly adjacent, like a soldier at attention. Anthony, a blood-lusty, passionate, and wildly tragic hero, stood like a caged tiger, feet out of alignment, one foot stepped in front of the other, as if ready to leap up and eviscerate the enemy at any moment. And finally Lepidus, forever the awkward and bumbling odd-man-out, standing flatfooted and loose, duck-footed, almost comic, clearly doomed.

The stage direction here worked so well to forward the meaning of the play, in all its complexity, and again, like the alliteration mentioned earlier, is so subtle and, as such, so brilliant. And everything rests in these subtle details, doesn’t it? Therein lies the Great Art. The performer and the writer, in doing their jobs right, put forth their high-minded visions through a sort of deft and implicit layering, a layering that deepens the whole in the context of (and in differentiation from) The Whole, for the sake of Grandeur and Greatness, on the page as well as on the stage. I love it when that happens.